In The Zone

 I've been reluctant to bring up this topic because it smacks of woo-woo and I am a dedicated anti-woo-woo person.  In fact when I ride my bike around town people point at me and whisper to each other "There goes a dedicated anti-woo-woo person." At least that's what I hope they're whispering.

I just read an interesting quote from Frederick M. Knott.  He was the author of two classic plays of suspense which were made into classic movies of the same: Dial M For Murder and Wait Until Dark. Knott wrote: 

There was a time when this play was becoming more and more complicated so I stopped everything and reconstructed it, which is an agonizing problem bur it has certainly paid off. A reverse process seems to have set in now and it seems to get more and more simple, and I am getting what I call the bonuses, i.e., good little things that grow naturally out of the writing, more than I bargained for and that is always a good indication that one is on the right tack at last.

What interested me was his comment about those bonuses.  I believe he is describing what I think of as being in the zone.  Here's a definition from Crossidiomas: "Being 'in the zone' is a term that describes a mental state where an individual is fully immersed in their task or activity. It’s a feeling of being completely present and engaged with what they are doing, without any distractions or interruptions. When someone is in this state, they may feel like time has slowed down or even stopped altogether."

It's usually used to describe athletes but it applies to writers as well.  For me it is the experience when pieces of your story fit together unexpectedly, making connections you didn't expect.

A favorite example: Back in 2015 Bouchercon was held in Raleigh. They announced that they would have an anthology and I decided to send them a story.  The problem was that the story I had ready, "On the Ramblas," was about a pickpocket  in Barcelona.   Nothing wrong with that, but I figured a story with some connection to Raleigh had a better chance of making it into the book. 

The name of the Bouchercon was Murder Under the Oaks, so I thought I might increase the odds of connecting to the book if I could fit something about oak trees in.

I should explain that the first sentence of my tale was: "Tourists wandered down the Ramblas like sheep waiting to be fleeced" and there were several other places where tourists were metaphrically compared to animals. 

I looked on the web for "Spain AND oak" and guess what? It turns out that that country brags that it has the best ham in the world because of pigs that forage under oak trees, living on acorns.  And there was my connection between my metaphorical animal/tourists and the theme of the book.  Bonus! My story is the last one in the book because the editor Art Taylor liked the ending so much he wanted it to be the last thing readers read.

Here's another example I have written about before.  When my sister Diane Chamberlain began work on her first novel, Private Relations, she decided that most of the characters would live in a big house in Mantoloking on the New Jersey shore. She found an appropriate house, took photos, and used them for inspiration.

Later, looking at photo collections at our parents' house, she found a picture of herself, age 16, in front of that same home.  Of course, this was part of the subconscious mind, what I call the Miner, helping her out.  

 And now I am working on a short story whose plot requires a bunch of characters to sit around talking for a few minutes.  Problem was I had no idea what they should be chatting about.  But darn it, I needed them talking.  So I literally wrote FILL THIS IN and went on with the story.

A few pages later, wouldn't you know it, I realized I had another problem.  I planned to send this story to a mystery magazine, which of course meant there had to be a crime in it.  And there was, but it wasn't revealed until the ending. I knew that the average mystery reader, clever and sneaky, would wonder why no crime had appeared, which might lead them to suspect exactly what I was up to.

And then I saw that Problem 1 was the solution to Problem 2, and vice versa.  The characters would chat about various crimes! While the readers were trying to figure out which anecdote being discussed was the one the story was really about they wouldn't notice the rabbit I had up my sleeve.  Bonus!

As I've said before, sometimes writing is a hard slog, but when you're in the zone, it can be magic. Tell me about when it has happened to you...

You Have to Start Somewhere

Back in March I started a review of a short story at Little Big Crimes as follows:

What should the opening sentence of a short story do?  The only thing it must do is make you want to read the second sentence. But it can do so much more.  For instance:

* It can set the mood.

* It can tell you something about the plot.

* It can introduce one or more characters.

I then provided the first sentence of the story I was examining, "Come Forth and Be Glad in the Sun," by Mat Coward.

"Of all the people we have ever kidnapped, you are by far the rudest."

Lovely.  But thinking about what I wrote I remembered that way back in 2009 I and some of the other bloggers at Criminal Brief created lists of our favorite opening lines from our own short stories.  I decided to update it.  So here are some of my best opening gambits from 2010 on.

Stephen Shane's gun went off twice while he was cleaning it, accidentally killing his wife and her lover.

The best day of my life started when I got arrested.

What am I?

Dr. Rayford Mason Pantell, B.S., M.S., Ph.D., current holder of the Lorenzen Endowed Chair for Biology, stared down at the naked corpse of his graduate student, Natalie Corsuch.

I am often asked who is responsible for what the Fourth Estate refers to as my “career in crime.”

When Domici walked into the office , Coyle stepped out from behind the door and hit him with a sap.

The Encyclopedia of American Race Riots.

Sean was running late even before he ran into the corpse.

"What is it," Leopold Longshanks asked, "about women and bad boys?"

The drunk made a speech as he climbed on board the All Nighter bus, explaining at the top of his lungs that he was Patrick X. Sorley, multimillionaire hedge fund manager, and the first thing he was going to do bright and early the next day when he returned to his corner office high above Montgomery Street would be arrange for the firing of the bartender who had taken his car keys and then kicked him out after pouring only one more measly bourbon.

 When Randolph was six years old he discovered he could control gravity.

Tourists wandered down the Ramblas like sheep waiting to be fleeced. 

 Lorrimer didn't realize he was in a fight until the little man kicked him.

Leopold Longshanks blamed it on a terrorist plot.

"Here's the story," said the man who's name was probably not Richard.

 

Bouchercon: Vision Revision

First things first: in my last piece in this space I complained about something I thought Sisters In Crime did at Bouchercon.  It turns out it was actually done by SmashWords.  I don't know where I got my misinformation and I apologize to Sisters In Crime and to anyone who read my piece before I corrected it.  Now onto today's fresh blunders…

As I mentioned last month, I am pleased as punch to have a story in Murder Under The Oaks, an anthology published in October to celebrate Bouchercon, the annual mystery convention, held this year in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I am also delighted that the profits go to Wake County, NC libraries.  How can I argue with a cause like that?

This photo shows me at the end of the assembly line, eighteen or so authors signing their stories.  I'm the last guy because my story ends the book.

When I heard about the proposed anthology I went through my old files, searching for an appropriate piece.  I was happy to give a story to charity, but only one that had already been rejected by the major markets.  This doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the tale; most of my stories that have  been nominated for awards were rejected at least once along the way.

I settled on "On The Ramblas,"  which is set in Barcelona.  (Well, I don't have any set in Raleigh... yet.)  I pulled up the file for an edit and decided the plot was fine and the writing was okay, but immediately the question of theme came up.

Eileen Gunn said that "'Theme' is what the critics use to describe what you did."  Someone else said theme is what the story is about other than the plot and the characters.  I prefer the latter definition.

Usually I don't know what the theme of a story is until I am in the final edits.  That's when a sentence in the text will pop up in front of me and I'll think: Oh, THAT'S what it's about.  But in the case of "On The Ramblas" I knew early on that the theme was: What does it take to make you happy?

Happy American tourists on the Ramblas,
with animals.

My story is about two American tourists in Spain. Frank is miserable because he would rather be back home making business deals. His wife, Helen, is unhappy because Frank is making sure she is. My third character, Josep, is a Catalonian pickpocket, and he is brokenhearted because his girlfriend left him, taking his team of thieves with her. He is not only lonely (say that three times fast) but he is trying to do his job without the proper co-workers. What will happen when these freight trains of unhappiness collide on the Ramblas, Barcelona's main tourist shopping street?

So I thought I was all set in the theme department. But as soon as I sat down to revise I realized that there was a second theme, begging to come out and play.  It was right there in the first sentence:  Tourists wandered through the Ramblas like sheep, waiting to be fleeced.  I loved the animal/people metaphor.  I realized I could punch up that connection.

(A little inside baseball here: technically  my metaphor is a motif which I am using to build a theme.  I say that strictly to show off to the English majors.  Back to business.)

Of course , there is a connection  between  happiness and the people/animal thingie.  Back in Philosophy 101  my professor quoted John Stuart Mill to explain the importance of her topic: It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.

There was one more thing I needed to do before sending in the story. It was recommended that the submissions include a reference to oak trees.  (Remember the title of the book?)  So I searched the web to see if there was 

The other end of the line,
with editor Art obscuring Margaret Maron.

any interesting connection between oaks and Spain.  There was!  And here's the beauty part: the connection has to do with animals. This is the sort of thing that happens when a writer is "in the zone." Things fall into place with spooky precision. It is the sort of thing that makes one invoke the muse or other magical explanations. I only wish it happened more often.

So I sent the story in, editor Art Taylor accepted it, and as a reward for his good taste and erudition he was invited to join the ranks of the SleuthSayers.

That last part is a joke: his name was brought up by someone who knew nothing about the anthology.  But I am glad to be in the book and I hope, well, that it makes you happy.